1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to laser scanning microscopes.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-113719, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In the related art, a known laser scanning microscope includes a light source that irradiates a sample with laser light and a photodetector that detects fluorescence from the sample, and has a digital micromirror device (referred to as “DMD” hereinafter), equipped with multiple micromirrors, and a galvanometer mirror that are disposed between the light source and the photodetector (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2004-199063).
The laser scanning microscope is configured to form an image of linear laser light on the DMD and to scan the linear laser light reflected by the DMD in a direction orthogonal to the line by using the galvanometer mirror. Thus, by performing on/off control on the micromirrors of the DMD on which the image of the laser light is formed, single-dot operation, multiple-dot operation, or linear scanning operation can be selected.
The aforementioned laser scanning microscope is configured such that the irradiated positions (resolution) of the sample and the pixels of the photodetector have a one-to-one relationship. Therefore, if the desired resolution is, for example, 512 by 512 pixels, the array size of the photodetector needs to be 512 pixels or more.